I Wish You All the Best Hardcover – May 14, 2019

It was delivered a day late which me personally, I'm really picky about since I'm really impatient. The book is really good though! There were one or two mistakes within the writing but to be honest it isn't that bad. Also one of the pages seemed to be printed weirdly since there was a mark of in on the page but I still managed to read the word fine.

I meant to write this review sooner, but I had a gender identity crisis. I'll explain later.First of all: oh my gods. This is one of the best YA books I've ever read. I couldn't stop talking about this book for days after finishing it, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. This book is so special to me for multiple reasons, some of which I'll get to in a minute. I'm so glad I found the audiobook on Scribd while searching for Pride Month reads.The book does tackle some tough subjects like misgendering, homophobia, and mental health struggles. The beginning was tough to get through, but I just had to keep reading to make sure Ben was okay. I loved them from the start and just wanted them to get the happiness they deserve. The mental health aspect of the book was so well written and accurate. It was refreshing to have such an accurate portrayal of mental health in a YA book.Ben and Nathan are 100% my favorite bookish couple ever. I don't think any fictional couple has ever made me feel so warm and soft. Both of them are just absolute sweethearts I wish I could be friends with. The entire time I read the book, I couldn't stop rooting for them, and once it happened, I had to stop the book to take a moment to just quietly celebrate.I mentioned that this book was special, and most of that is because it helped me find myself. I connected with Ben almost immediately, which I didn't really think anything of at first. The more I thought about this book, the more I started trying to pinpoint exactly why I connected so quickly with them. Spoiler alert: I'm nonbinary. Conversations with my best friend eventually helped me completely confirm it, but this book definitely started the journey for me, so it'll forever hold a special place in my heart. So thank you for that Mason.

The story was quite heart wrenching and very thoughtful. Loved the way it was written.

I’m still recovering from this book but as my school courses began yesterday, I wanted to go ahead and write this review while I have a little time.I happened to see in Mason Deaver’s Instagram story that hoopla had the audiobook for I Wish You All The Best a bit more than a week early. I was SO EXCITED because I have a hoopla account via my local public library. Since this doesn’t affect first week sales and this is one of my most anticipated books of 2019, I decided to dive in head first. I’ll put the TW/CWs at the end of this post. Let’s jump right into the review!The characters in I Wish You All The Best were so amazing. Ben De Backer is now my child and I will defend them with my life. Seriously. They’re all so well written that from the very beginning I was fully invested in everyone on the page. It is obvious that Mason Deaver put their heart and soul into these characters. The representation offered is beautiful and each character could easily walk right off the page. I especially loved seeing the slow burn between Ben and Nathan. Slow burns are my new fave.There is one thing that I knew going into this review I would need to talk about so here we go. I went into the novel knowing that there would be amazing non-binary representation. It was just as amazing and more as what I was expecting. However, there was something else that I wasn’t expecting and it took me completely off guard. I don’t know how to share this other than to quote so….“Touch aversion can be common in people who deal with panic attacks or people dealing with anxiety. In fact, there are some people who are just born or developed that way, like asexual or aromantic people.”I… was not expecting this? When I got to this part of the story, I was so surprised and overwhelmed that I wept. Like full-on-ugly-cry-don’t-talk-to-me-I’m-not-fine wept. I had to pause the story and walk away for a few minutes. This book is the first time I’ve seen any rep for being touch averse, which I am. I never thought I would see that represented at all and even now I’m tearing up about it a bit.I Wish You All The Best is a contemporary novel, which means it’s a realistic fiction set in modern times. The majority of the story takes place in Raleigh, North Carolina. I haven’t been to Raleigh, but I do live in another large city in the southern United States, so it wasn’t hard for me to get a feel for the environment. Also because of that though, I’m not the best judge of the large-scale world building. Honestly, I’m the worst at that with contemporaries anyway. But each of the locations was given enough of a description that it was immersive so do what you will with that knowledge.The story itself is perfectly paced from beginning to end, with twists and turns at just the right moments. I would even go so far as to say that I Wish You All The Best is a work of art. I can’t say I loved every moment of it because there were parts that were meant to make the reader uncomfortable (and I was) but this is a book I’ll definitely be rereading in the future.I Wish You All The Best was right up at the top of my most anticipated 2019 releases list. There is so much hype surrounding it. And it still manages to exceed all of the high expectations placed upon it. I can not wait to read more from Mason Deaver in the future.

this book is my absolute favorite book in the YA genre!! Mason does an absolutely fantastic job of displaying a non-binary relationship, this book is a must have!!

Such a good book. I cried so hard.

Rating: 5 starsI enjoyed this book a lot. It's beautifully written, heart-touching, and really sweet. A non-binary teenager Ben got kicked out by their parents because they came out to them. Then Ben went to their estranged sister Hannah and started to live with Hannah's family in a new town far away, where they met their significant someone, Nathan. The story is about sibling relationships, friendship, self-respect, and love. Mason captured the details so well that many scenes really dragged my tears out.Love this book a lot!

I have been following Mason Deaver on Twitter for a long time, after seeing them tweet about writing a non-binary love story. Every excerpt or mention made me even more excited for I Wish You All the Best, their debut novel.⁠⁠When Ben comes out as non-binary to their parents, it goes as horribly wrong as a coming out possibly can, leaving them standing at a public phone calling their sister to come get them. A new life with their sister, a new school, the opportunity to live as their authentic self, and a therapist to help them with their out of control anxiety.⁠⁠And then there's Nathan, who takes Ben under his wing. Is Nathan just a friend, or could there be more?⁠⁠This is both a love story, and a story of coming out. I Wish You All the Best has some beautiful moments of levity and romance, but also dark honesty around the difficulty of growing up with parents who refuse to accept who their child is. ⁠

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found the writing to be excellent, this is the authors first novel but they did a great job in getting me to feel what Ben was feeling which I think is always a sign of a good author. Whilst Ben is struggling with anxiety attacks I found myself feeling helpless along side them. Don’t worry, whilst this book does deal with heavy topics there’s also a lot of beautiful moments and I think Mason did a fantastic job in making this book hit just the right tone. I loved the romance here, it’s quite clear early on that there is a mutual attraction between Nathan and Ben but these two take a while to realise it for themselves and I just loved watching them uncover their feelings. My only negative was that I would’ve liked more about the sibling relationship between Hannah and Ben. They have a very interesting dynamic to me, in them having not seen each other for so long and now Hannah is Ben’s guardian, that I would’ve liked to get more on that.Overall, this was a fantastic read and i’m very happy that I did read it. This was the first book I ever read with a nonbinary MC and I do actually feel like I learnt a lot from it, books have so much power and influence that I cannot stress enough how important it is to get own voices representation in them. I think this was an incredibly important book and I hope i’ll be seeing more nonbinary representation in the future.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book with a non-binary person as the lead character. So of course when I heard about this debut from Mason Deaver I was like I NEED THIS NOW. I’ve followed Mason for a few years now on twitter so I’ve been excited for this book for a while.Content warnings: misgendering, homophobia, enbyphobia, anxiety, depression, being kicked out of homeI Wish You All The Best follows Ben De Backer after they come out as non-binary to their parents. They have been thrown out of their home and all that’s left for them to do is to phone their estranged sister. She takes them in and Ben has to start at a whole new school, make new friends and find a whole new life.This book is so stunning. It both made me happy and broke my heart. There is no other word for this bar “Groundbreaking”. With so few books out there even featuring non-binary supporting characters, this book from ownvoices author Mason Deaver is incredibly important.Whilst I’ve never been thrown out of the house by my parents for being who I am, there were a lot of moments and struggles Ben went through where I felt I could relate a lot. They struggled a lot with anxiety and depression, which is something I know a lot about . I felt like Deaver covered these topics incredibly well and I loved that they included Ben seeing a therapist. I feel like a lot of YA contemporaries skirt around therapy or just show it in a bad light. There are a lot of good therapists out there and it really can help.Whilst this book was quite a hard read at times, Deaver balanced humour along with the pain and sadness really well. This book feels hopeful. There are of course a lot of times with a lot of melancholy but Deaver does a wonderful job in reminding the reader that things can eventually look up. They also do a fantastic job of finding moments of humour in severe sadness.I loved the different ways that Deaver examined familial relationships through Ben. We see Ben’s opinion of their parents and their sister change through the process of coming out. They feel like Hannah left them to be stuck with their parents, and whilst dealing with that whilst living with Hannah they realise that it wasn’t the situation they originally thought.Nathan is a sweet cinnamon roll and I absolutely love him. He takes everything in stride and is just such a positive force in Ben’s life. I personally would like to have seen a little more of Nathan and Ben’s relationship but this is for my romance loving heart more than anything.I honestly adored this book and I am so excited for whatever Mason Deaver comes out with next.

!spoilers!I relate to Ben not coming out to their school when they transferred there even though they knew they were non-binary. I liked that Nathan misgendered Ben because it's so realistic! Some people might have just tried to avoid using pronouns if the main character is closeted but I liked that the main character could feel that sting of being misgendered (i know the pain 😫).The diversity in this book is amazing.It shows a lot of struggles teenagers have and I can definitely relate to, such as peer pressure and mental health issues, fear of coming out.Hannah reminds me a bit about my sister, they act similarly and reacted similarly when I came out. overall loved the book.

Overall I think this is a great YA book for anyone to read, as it not only deals with someone dealing with the fallout from a family that does not support them due to them being who they are, but touches on dealing with anxiety and the massive upheaval changing school that follows. Great read, really well written, highly recommend.